For the second
straight day, MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday ran a segment titled "Keep Calm and Carry
On" - Scarborough's favored slogan of late, he even features it in his Twitter profile account - dedicated to throwing water on the political
fire created by the fringe Left and Right and promoting more calm, moderate,
bipartisan candidates and positions. Tuesday's segment featured a game show
format where Joe and co-host Mika Brzezinski asked questions with obvious
answers - for instance, does such-and-such rabid quotation by such-and-such talk
show blowhard merit the label "Keep Calm and Carry On?"

Scarborough's
second question began thus: "If you're a liberal radio and TV talk show
host, and your goal is to keep calm and carry on, do you say of a
Republican politician who's just had a life-threatening heart attack,
quote, 'We ought to rip his heart out, and kick it around, and stuff it
back in his chest'?"

That question referred to Ed Schultz's nasty rant[1]
from this past February, where he derided conservatives for complaining
that Dick Cheney's recovery from his heart attack was being used as a
political football for health care. "You're damn right Dick Cheney's
heart is a political football," Schultz ranted. "We ought to rip it out
and kick it around and stuff it back in him. I'm glad he didn't tip
over. He is the new poster child for health care in this country."

Two
questions later, Scarborough again used an MSNBC colleague's words as
an example of hate-speech. "If you're a liberal cable host, and you want
to keep calm and carry on, do you accuse the President of the United
States, who happens to be a Republican, of being a fascist, and a liar,
who urinates on the Constitution?" he asked columnist Mike Barnacle.

That question referred back to Olbermann's August, 2008 smear[2] of President Bush's administration as "urinating on the Constitution."

It
seems quite fascinating that out of all the hate speech from liberal
talk show hosts on radio and television, Scarborough chose to feature
barbs from two of his colleagues. Then again, MSNBC isn't exactly a
harbor of calm and collected debate.

A partial transcript of the segment, which aired on September 21 at 6:43 a.m. EDT, is as follows:

JOE
SCARBOROUGH: Calling out the "Professional Left" and the far-Right, a
campaign of ours to kind of calm everybody down, because we find - and
we found out in New Hampshire this past weekend, we've seen it
everywhere from Maine down to South Alabama, to Florida, to Alabama, to
West - Americans are tired of all the screaming and shouting, so we're
trying to encourage sort of the chattering classes - to keep calm, and
carry on. A noble gesture, is it not?

JON MEACHAM: Absolutely. I would expect nothing less.

(...)

SCARBOROUGH:
Question: If you're a liberal radio and TV talk show host, and your
goal is to keep calm and carry on, do you say of a Republican politician
who's just had a life-threatening heart attack, quote, "We ought to rip
his heart out, and kick it around, and stuff it back in his chest."

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That's a no-brainer, Willie.

WILLIE GEIST: Life-threatening, or did it cost him his life?

SCARBOROUGH: Life-threatening. He's still alive - these guys aren't very good at this.

BRZEZINSKI: It's a new game.

GEIST: Yes.

SCARBOROUGH: No.

GEIST: You said "threatening."

SCARBOROUGH: "Life-threatening." No, I'm sorry.

(...)

SCARBOROUGH:
Question: For the t-shirt. If you're a liberal cable host, and you want
to keep calm and carry on, do you accuse the President of the United
States, who happens to be a Republican, of being a fascist, and a liar,
who urinates on the Constitution? Now Mike, I would suggest that
"urinates on the Constitution," as well as "liar" and "fascist," would
be a clue for you.

MIKE BARNACLE: It is, it is, and I don't need a
lifeline for this one. Yes. (Pause) C'mon, give me the t-shirt. That
was the right answer, wasn't it? It happens all the time!

SCARBOROUGH: It does happen all the time. We have, actually, some re-educating to do.

BRZEZINSKI: We do.

-Matt Hadro is News Analysis intern at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here[3].[4]

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